This UFC sports story showcases violent, bloody bouts and a toxic, destructive relationship. And while Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt do excellent jobs with the characters they portray, The Smashing Machine as a whole is disappointing. Foul language, drug use and bloody batterings abound.
Mark Kerr is not what you’d expect.
When you first see Mark, you’ll probably be intimidated by his 6-foot-1-inch physique and its 255 pounds of raging-bull muscle. But then you’ll find yourself taken aback by his soft-spoken and genuinely genial nature. You’ll quake as he pounds an Octagon foe’s face to bloody pulp but be surprised when he kneels to encourage a small boy not to fight.
This behemoth of a man is hard to pin down.
But frankly, that’s exactly what Kerr wants. As an Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter, he wants to be unpinnable. He’s buoyed and brought to a euphoric peak every time he batters his opponent to the canvas and stands, massive arms raised, to be bathed in the adoring crowd’s cheers.
It almost makes him feel like a god!
Of course, Mark Kerr is no god. He’s not unbeatable either. His bulging muscles may make him look invulnerable, but he feels the painful batterings—the kicks to the head, the knees to fracturing ribs. And the pain meds that he constantly injects into his arms and legs … they leave Mark pinned to the mat every time. That’s a beat down that’s starting to show.
Mark’s girlfriend, Dawn, notices. His trainer notices. The crowd is beginning to notice. Mark is the only one who hasn’t quite seen the tiny cracks in his façade.
But then Mark loses his first big bout. And things begin to crumble.
That’s when this big “unpinnable” guy starts doing exactly what you’d expect.
At his core, Mark Kerr is a good guy who doesn’t really wish anyone harm. He’s smart and sensitive. He’ll pound a foe to a torn and bloody mess during a sanctioned fight, but he’ll also pause to make sure the guy is alright before leaving the ring. He takes time to praise others and greet people with a warm smile even when he’s feeling down.
On the other hand, Mark wrestles with certain demons in his life, and his relationship with Dawn brings those things to the fore. Which is not so great for him or her.
However, Dawn has her good side, too. She tries to encourage Mark. She suggests, for instance, that he would be a good father.
None.
Dawn tends to wear outfits that accentuate her figure. It’s obvious that her sexual appeal is what draws Mark to her, and she uses that to her advantage. We see them flirt, hug and kiss on a number of occasions. We also see Dawn in bed with the sheet drawn up; it’s implied that she’s naked beneath.
The Smashing Machine includes several well-staged and realistic martial arts fights. So there is plenty of pounding violence on display.
For instance, our introduction to Mark as a fighter is through a string of battles where he tackles opponents, slams them savagely to the canvas and mercilessly batters them. He headbutts their faces and drives his massive knees into their ribs, stomachs and heads. Blood flows freely.
A badly bruised and scarred Mark tells a woman that UFC fights are “the bloodiest and the goriest sport you’ll ever see.” And the fights we see throughout the film brutally illustrate this assessment.
Some men (including Mark) are pounded in the face and head so viciously that they’re left unconscious on the mat, blood flowing from a variety of injuries. On one occasion, after Mark is badly beaten, the camera watches closely as a doctor stitches up his wounds.
A Japanese fighting contest announces that “biting, eye-gouging, head-butting and kneeing an opponent to the head” will no longer be allowed—though kicking a man in the face after knocking him to the floor is just fine. We see everything but the eye-gouging illustrated.
In his personal life, Mark sometimes rages over things Dawn says while trying to goad him into action. On two occasions, he literally breaks a door into kindling in his anger.
Dawn picks up a pistol and holds it to her temple during an argument. But Mark stops her before she injures herself.
The dialogue contains some 40 f-words, five s-words and a couple uses each of the words “b–ch,” “d–n” and “a–.” Someone makes a crude reference to male genitals.
Mark injects himself several times with a powerful (and addictive) pain killer. He also injects someone else who is suffering from the pain of a past injury. The drugs leave him generally unresponsive with a glazed look. In one case, the drugs knock him out, and he gets rushed to the hospital.
Mark works with doctors and UFC staff to acquire medications and feed his growing habit. He also pops handfuls of ibuprofen. Mark and Dawn drink alcohol on several occasions.
Mark dumps out his large supply of drugs, needles and other paraphernalia and enters rehab.
Dawn is very much a prototypical narcissist. She’s so self-focused that she doesn’t see how she’s causing major fights when people simply don’t react to her the way she expects them to. She and Mark (with his fragile insecurities) feed off each other’s negative attitudes, and that generally leads to something destructive or hurtful taking place.
You sometimes encounter roles in a movie that feel readymade for a given actor. In the case of The Smashing Machine, you can multiply that by two.
Dwayne Johnson, in facial prosthetics and 30 pounds of extra muscle, embodies mixed martial artist Mark Kerr to a believable, bulging-vein T. And Emily Blunt compliments this UFC fighter by portraying his cleavage-boosted, narcissistic girlfriend Dawn Staples—a complicated character that feels as real as a disapproving sigh.
Together, the actors and their roles make for a very compelling character study.
Unfortunately, The Smashing Machine isn’t a very compelling movie.
This pic is a collection of disjointed scenes and moments that never really click together: instead they jump, they lurch, they pound. Rather than displaying Kerr as the advertised “unforgettable UFC champion,” the movie portrays him as a guy who won some matches, lost the big ones and had a drug problem. The only connecting fiber is Mark and Dawn’s toxically messy relationship. But as a sports story, the whole thing feels beaten down and pinned to the mat with no overarching message or emotional win.
Viewers are left then with two hours of foul language, drug abuse and pounded-to-a-bloody-pulp messiness. Perhaps that’s true to life. But it’s not truly worth your time.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
